- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
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It’s a simple one. Rather than spending half a decade or more working endlessly on one title, the idea is to instead make games in one or two years, maybe three at max. And if they’re not quite polished enough for a full release by then, they can be popped into early access instead.
So the industry hasn’t learned a damn thing.
One option is to make games that look worse. Given how super-detailed graphics seem to be far less important to a younger generation raised on Roblox and Minecraft, this would seem like a fair enough strategy.
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Yet there seemed to be little appetite for this strategy among the people I spoke to at Gamescom. Perhaps it’s an unwillingness to fly in the face of conventional wisdom in an industry where frame rates are often fetishised. Perhaps it’s more about simple pride in the craft.
It ain’t pride. Minecraft and Roblox aren’t detailed, but they have an aesthetic. Factorio has an aesthetic. Quake had an aesthetic. Super Mario 3 had an aesthetic. Art in general sometimes does things realistically, but how realistic is an anime catgirl in leather with a giant hammer?
Spend less money.
It’s genuinely that simple. Don’t expect 3x ROI on whatever you budget, and then pour eight hojillion dollars into a seven-year gamble. If all you have to work with is fifteen salaries for a year, I guaranfuckingtee you that’s enough to make a game, with drastically lower stakes for success or failure.
But of course these vultures actually mean, crunch crunch crunch, push out a real-money siphon, gamble on cloning last year’s hits. What do the kids like these days? Horse girls? Sure, let’s built a house opposite that moving ship.
Just reduce the the scope. Give us smaller, more focused games.
This is the easy answer, but the industry won’t do it.
More “AA” games please. we don’t need the best graphics if the game is actually fun
I hope by making games quicker they shorten the length of the games to do so. Give me some good ol’ 40-50 hour RPGs. I can’t take this 100+ hour length anymore.
Nah, they will simply just break one game into parts, and sell it that way, in the end costing you more for that game.
I know it’s an opinion piece but why lie. The author says salaries are the biggest cost driver. That is simply not true if you look at the marketing budget of any big game.
Also games should not be made quicker, they should be made slower. Quickly made games leads us to the slop of recent years. Games that are being baked for a dozen years however are of a higher quality, it’s like the good old days. Just because the industry says games should be quicker does not make that statement right.
Games should absolutely not be taking longer to develop. Studios are working on games for 5-6 years and the game releases as a buggy, broken mess that isnt even enjoyable. By comparison, games in the 2000s were made in less than 3 years on average, and some are still widely regarded as masterpieces, even if they have bugs.
Games should not ever be taking so long. The industry has a problem that they need to resolve. Whether its too many chefs in the kitchen, too big game scope, too much time spent on R&D instead of sticking with something known to be viable, they have to solve it themselves.
Games haven’t ever taken this long. The “good old days” were quickly made games comparatively. Slow games lead to bloated budgets which lead to bloated content which leads to bloated investor expectations.
There’s a middle ground. Maybe they shouldn’t be trying to release a new CoD every 6 months, but they also don’t need to take 11 years with it.
The issue we’re seeing isn’t really sure to production budget, it’s due to a broad squash on the middle class globally by governments going conservative and wealth pooling in the rich. And this is amplied specifically the response of companies to less people buying less games of increasing the cost of the games.
The reality is the people driving all the decisions just aren’t in touch with the reasons behind market shifts.
Competition has grown in the industry and long-term live-service black hole games have captured parts of the potential purchase-base so wholly that they don’t really spend elsewhere.
Game companies have plenty of methods for bringing costs down, but making games faster gives you more attempts at a very competitive market. (Some) Indie games are sort of proving this right. If you make a relatively quality game in a short time period and release it for a relatively good price, you can get your foot in the door of the market. If you spend 5+ years making the biggest game you’ve ever made and it sucks, your studio dies.
The big question is if AAA shifts to making games faster, are they going to be of a high enough quality to justify the outrageous price publishers will still want to set for them? (easy: no)
Basically I see it as the industry splitting even further. The AAA games that make money will continue to do so only so long as their last game lets them float 5+ year dev cycles. Otherwise, companies and publishers are going to reduce risk and investment and push developers to make their game faster, get to market faster. Arguably that would be healthy for the industry, but I know it won’t be.
